The Irish Nazi, the Unionist MPs and the British Tories

An Irish fascist has turned up as editor of Right Now!, an ultra-right magazine within the British Conservative Party. Derrick Turner was investigated by the Garda’ in 1988, when he was working at the Irish Navy base in Hawlboline, Co. Cork. Turner was the leader of a tiny fascist group, the Social Action Initiative, and was suspected of passing naval communications to the UDA in Belfast. During the investigation it was found that he had met National Front leaders at the UDA'a headquarters.

The following year Turner went to London, where he was photographed taking part in a National Front demonstration. Now, after changing his name to Derek, he has turned up in the Conservative Party.

Right Now! is a bridge between the 'respectable' Tory right like Teresa Gorman and Sir Richard Brody, and hard line nazis outside the Party. Veteran fascists like Joy Page have been regulars at Right Now! meetings.

Although he claims his views have moderated over the years, Turner's words say otherwise. In the Salisbury Review (another British ultra-right journal) he attacked the "liberal notions" of "mixed race intellectuals". Was this a once-off? Well, a look at the people he has persuaded to act as patrons for Right Now! is instructive.

American journalist Samuel Francis was sacked from the right wing Washington Times for "well, being too right wing". In fact Francis was sacked for promoting white racism at an extremist conference. Another patron, Professor Dwight D Murphy, is a Kansas academic who made his name writing a history of lynchings.

The magazine's American distributor is Mark Cotterill, a man with links to both the National Front and the paramilitary C18. Cotterill, who been in the USA for the last year, is working with the Council of Conservative Citizens. This organisation grew out of the White Citizens' Councils which attacked the civil rights movement and defended racial segregation in the 1960s.

Ten Westminister MPs have associated themselves with Turner's outfit. At the very least it is a racist publication whose organisers have a past steeped in fascist politics. Among the MPs who have spoken at its meetings (in rooms at the House of Commons) are Deputy DUP leader Peter Robinson and Orange Grand Master Martin Smyth. Why are we not surprised?